Ten Reasons Ethics News Reeks of Bias

Reporters would have you believe the news media's non-stop
coverage of the Gingrich ethics story is standard operating procedure. No
agenda, no bias, no sirree. let this writer give you ten reasons why that is
bunk, why this is anything but standard coverage of congressional
ethics.

1. On September 24, 1987, Washington Post reporter Charles
Babcock broke the story of Speaker Jim Wright's book deal. Absolute television
silence followed. On February 19, 1988, Newt Gingrich asked for an ethics
investigation of Wright. He gained two paragraphs in the Los Angeles Times and
a mention in The Washington Post. Network coverage: zero.

Three months after Gingrich was dismissed by the press, the
left-wing lobby Common Cause raised the issue, calling for a Wright
investigation. Suddenly, it became big news. But while the print outfits
jumped in, along with ABC and CNN, NBC waited a week. CBS waited nine days
before finding it newsworthy.

2. Not once at the 1988 conventions did CBS and NBC ever
mention the Wright controversy (CNN aired one brief mention and ABC two). But
in just two nights of the GOP convention, network stars found room for 158
mentions of Dan Quayle's draft record and rumored involvement with lobbyist
Paula Parkinson.

3. When Wright did resign in 1989, reporters used terms such
as "ethics purge," "ethics epidemic," and "ethics
reign of terror." ABC's Jim Wooten blew Wright a kiss: "And if his
moving speech today does not restore those decencies he so wistfully
remembered today, then perhaps history will remember that at least he
tried."

4. On February 7, 1990, the General Accounting Office
reported $232,000 in bad House checks during the previous year. Only the
Washington Post (the next day) and the Los Angeles Times (two months later)
did a story on the findings. When Roll Call broke the story again in 1992, the
networks took two weeks to acknowledge the story's existence.

The House Bank scandal led to felony counts and prison
terms, but this still wasn't enough to budge the networks. In November 1993,
chief banker Jack Russ pled guilty to three felony counts, including
embezzlement of $75,000. ABC, CBS, and NBC ran nothing. In April 1994,
former Rep. Carroll Hubbard (D-Ky.) pled guilty to channeling campaign funds
through the House Bank. Again, nothing from the Big Three.

5. On February 6, 1992, The Washington Times uncovered the
House Post Office scandal, including revelations of cocaine selling on Capitol
Hill. Network coverage that month: zero. On March 16, "Today" show
co-host Katie Couric reversed the charges: "You've charged that the
Speaker [Tom Foley] sat on the report for ten months linking drug sales to the
post office," she said to Newt Gingrich. "Yet he says he immediately
called in postal inspectors. Postal inspectors did come in and there are
indictments pending against the employees. So isn't this a cheap shot?"

6. Network stars pleaded the country would be damaged by
prosecuting Democratic bigwig Dan Rostenkowski. Take ABC's Charles Gibson:
"What's involved here, is perhaps, what, some $50,000 in stamps and some
phantom jobs for friends?....Here, though, is a guy who passes bills or is
shepherding bills worth billions of dollars risking his career for small
amounts, or you think, significant enough that there's real corruption
here?"

In the two years before Rostenkowski was indicted in May
1994, the networks aired only 31 stories - four stories a year per network on
the crimes that sent this man to federal prison. By contrast, Gingrich's
perfectly legal book deal with HarperCollins received 27 stories in its first
month.

7. The October 3, 1995 Boston Globe reported the investment
firm Account Management Corp. was fined $100,000 by the Securities and
Exchange Commission for secretly offering initial public offerings of stock to
friends, including former Speaker Foley. Roll Call noted in 1993 that Foley
had been offered no less than 12 IPOs in 1992 and made money on eleven of
them. Network evening news coverage? Zero. In June 1994, ABC reported on
an IPO gained by Republican Sen. Al D'Amato - the day after Roll Call
reported it.

9. Last February, the Landmark Legal Foundation filed an
ethics complaint against House Minority Whip David Bonior for misusing his
congressional staff to write a book on government time. Network coverage?
Zero.

10. Though he was later cleared, Senate Minority Leader Tom
Daschle faced obstruction charges in 1995 for intervening with Forest Service
regulators investigating a good buddy/contributor whose aviation company
suffered a deadly crash. Network coverage? With the exception of
"60 Minutes," zero.

The list seems endless (and note I didn't even mention the
Clinton administration). What Rush Limbaugh calls the Liberal Media-Democratic
Party Complex effectively connected the words "sleaze factor" and
"Republican" in the public mind in the Reagan-Bush years. Now
they're building a gallows for Gingrich. Meanwhile, Democrats can lie,
cheat, steal, and sell cocaine with abandon - and why not? Who's to tell?

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